Kravitz: Luck's not Jordan, but he's special

Jan. 9, 2014

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck runs off the field in celebration after throwing the winning touchdown in the AFC Playoff game against Kansas City on Saturday, January 4, 2014 at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts pulled out a 45-44 win.

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No, he’s not Michael Jordan. We all acknowledge that. But give Indianapolis Colts General Manager Ryan Grigson a break. In the moments after the Colts’ 45-44 playoff victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, he was giddy as he spoke to reporters about quarterback Andrew Luck.

“It’s like Jordan when he’d take the last shot,” Grigson said. “He wants the ball. This guy, we’re so blessed, he wants the ball in those situations. Other guys don’t want the ball; they want to hand it off. They don’t really want it — they’re going to be half-stepping. This kid is going to rear back and throw a bomb when he has all the pressure on him. And that’s a thing of beauty. You’re born with that.”

Now then, was he comparing Luck, winner of exactly one playoff game, with Jordan, owner of six NBA championship rings? I think not. He was making the point that great athletes seize the biggest moments, and he was right. Luck wants the ball when the odds are stacked against him and his team — especially when he was largely responsible for digging the hole in the first place.

Listen to Matt Hasselbeck, who was talking after the game about the game-winning pass to T.Y. Hilton.

“Andrew and Pep were having a conversation, and Pep asked him about how he felt about the deep ball to T.Y.,” Hasselbeck said. “Most of the time, the guy running that route is just clearing out underneath for somebody else. But Andrew said, ‘Yeah, I like it here.’ He was so confident. And he threw that ball, he was so definite with that pass. Usually you like to put a little air under that, but he put it on a string to T.Y. That’s special right there.”

What Indianapolis has now is a special young quarterback, one who’s been so good, he’s drowned out the vocal minority of fans who still somehow think the Colts would have been better off keeping Peyton Manning. A week ago, Luck built the foundation for his legend, even if he did it while putting himself and his team in a terrific hole with three interceptions. This week, he gets to go against the best quarterback of the modern day, Tom Brady, the man with three Super Bowls and a 17-7 postseason record.

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Want to be the best? Beat the best.

And what better way to announce yourself on the massive national stage than by doing it in the playoffs, when everybody — Skip Bayless included — is watching.

“There’s been some great ones,” Colts coach Chuck Pagano said. “But (Luck) is going to go down as probably one of the best, if not the best, ever to play this game when everything is all said and done.”

The biggest test of Luck’s career comes Saturday night. Here come the New England Patriots and, more to the point, Bill Belichick’s ever-changing defenses. For years, Belichick’s defenses flummoxed Peyton Manning, and last year, Luck was out of his element attempting to deal with the Patriots, throwing two pick-sixes.

Every week is a mental strain, but against Belichick, who disguises coverages better than anyone, it will be a challenge unlike anything Luck has seen since the last time he went to Foxborough. As Manning always used to tell us, the one thing you can count on with Belichick is he will do things he hasn’t shown on tape. He is the master at game-specific plans designed to render an opponent’s pregame preparation useless. While Kansas City played a steady diet of man coverage last week, expect a lot more wrinkles and changing defenses from Belichick and his staff.

“I definitely think that’s a challenge,” Luck said. “I also think they have good football players; you don’t want to undervalue that aspect of it … They do a great job of disguising their defenses. Everything seems to look the same, then you blink for a second, and it’s completely different and you’ve screwed up. We have to be on our P’s and Q’s.”

Here’s the thing you like about the Colts right now: They’ve unleashed the beast. They’ve gone away from running head-first into a wall with heavy personnel and have found a workable solution with the no-huddle, shotgun, three wide-receiver sets. They’ve figured out that the pass needs to set up the run. And why not? Luck is their best player. Let him do his thing, whether that’s passing or scrambling.

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Offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton was asked a question this week about running the no-huddle while dealing with the noise at Gillette Stadium. He smiled while he gave an answer. He finished with, “If we run the no-huddle.”

He was joking.

… we believe.

The Colts’ hope is that Hamilton has more success against Belichick’s defense than he did when he was an assistant coach (not offensive coordinator, though) with the New York Jets.

The teams played six times during Hamilton’s years in New York, 2003-05. The Patriots won all six and gave up an average of 11.5 points per game. It should be noted those weren’t great Jets teams, going 6-10, 10-6 and 4-12. The Jets quarterbacks were Chad Pennington twice and the immortal Brooks Bollinger.

I like Hamilton’s chances better with Luck. It’s not just his physical tools, it’s his analytical mind. It took years for Peyton Manning to get the best of Belichick’s defenses. Now it’s Luck’s turn, a second chance.

“I think (Luck) takes more of a quantitative approach to the game in how he prepares,” Hamilton said. “He’s really into the stats — not his stats, per se — but their tendencies. ‘On first down, 40 percent of the time we expect pressure.’ That’s part of how he programs himself, to be able to go out and through a process of elimination say, ‘Hey, this is what we expect on this play. All right, this is my starting point.’ Or, ‘This is how we help ourselves get into the right play.’ That’s the one thing that I think he’s always done a really good job of, really just having his own process of getting himself ready to play the game.”

Said Hasselbeck: “I think he’s probably smarter than all of us.”

It’s going to take a beautiful mind, not to mention rampant athleticism, for Luck to lead the Colts past the Patriots in Foxborough. He’s not Michael Jordan — yet — but man, he’s pretty darned good, with a chance to be great.